Xbit labs G80 review.

[Cookie Monster]

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Conclusion:

We can?t make any conclusions about the GeForce 8800 GTX as a gaming card until we?ve finished our gaming tests, but the new architecture from Nvidia boasts an impressive potential, beyond any doubt. This is obvious even from the theoretical tests where the GeForce 8800 GTX is the absolute winner. Moreover, we suspect that our tests cannot fully show the advantages of the new graphics cards from Nvidia over its last-generation opponents.

On one hand, we often see the performance of the GeForce 8800 GTX being limited by the bandwidth of its TMUs or onboard memory, which conceals the huge difference between the GeForce 8800 GTX and the Radeon X1950 XTX in raw computing power. On the other hand, the unified shader architecture is a priori better in synthetic benchmarks because the whole computing power of the GPU is allotted for one task.

Nvidia also took care about the image quality provided by its new flagship: the new FSAA and anisotropic filtering algorithms are indeed an improvement over the previous products. This is most important for the GeForce series that used to lag behind its opponents from the Radeon X1000 series in terms of image quality.

That said, the true potential of the GeForce 8 will only be revealed after the release of Windows Vista and DirectX 10 which promise us a lot of improvements in future games in terms of speed as well as quality.

The triumph came to Nvidia at a price: the 0.09-micron G80 is very large and uneconomical chip with high heat dissipation. Combined with the wider, 384-bit memory bus, this made the PCB of the new card very large and expensive, too. So, there were some problems as a consequence. As you may know, the senior GeForce 8800 model was withdrawn from sales channels not long before the announcement due to technical issues that made the first series of the GeForce 8800 GTX inoperable. Fortunately, that problem doesn?t concern the GeForce 8800 GTS, yet the delay with the shipments of the world?s fastest graphics card is no good for Nvidia. We hope this problem will be solved in near future and the GeForce 8800 GTX will be available for everyone who wants it. Nvidia says that GeForce 8800 GTX, even though in limited quantities, will indeed be available right after its announcement,

We?ll voice our final verdict about the GeForce 8800 GTX and its market perspectives in our upcoming article dedicated to the gaming performance of the new card. It will be published soon on our site.

 

[Matt2]

jeez, talk about raining on a parade.

 

[beggerking]

they don't even have any realtime benchmarks??...

 

[flexy]

>>>
We can?t make any conclusions about the GeForce 8800 GTX as a gaming card until we?ve finished our gaming tests,
>>>

nice "review"

 

[CP5670]

This "review" is rather pointless without any game scores. They should probably have just waited until those were finished and released the entire thing at once.

 

[flexy]

Originally posted by: flexy
>>>
We can?t make any conclusions about the GeForce 8800 GTX as a gaming card until we?ve finished our gaming tests,
>>>

nice "review"

Edit: i think every 10 yo with that card and a bunch of recent titles COULD pull a better review out of his ***....instead of writing "we cant make a conclusion about how good this as a gaming card"....so..the usefulness of this review kinda eludes me.

 

[Racer7]

Also, last I checked (like 1 minute ago) there are 8800GTX's in stock at the Egg. What shortage are they talking about?

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: Racer7
Also, last I checked (like 1 minute ago) there are 8800GTX's in stock at the Egg. What shortage are they talking about?

ithinkt he xbitlabs guys are in russia, so they may be thinking there is a shortage there. thats probably why their review is late and they dont have a 8800gts either.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Racer7
Also, last I checked (like 1 minute ago) there are 8800GTX's in stock at the Egg. What shortage are they talking about?

I think, at the time they were finishing up their article is when the faulty resistor thing was happening and they anticipated a recall of 8800GTX's. I bet they never thought in a million years nvidia would head off the problem and still launch both models of the G80 on time.

 

[beggerking]

xbitlabs review are usually good..

this is funny though.. they actually thought G80 aren't out yet...

 

[BFG10K]

I'd like to know how they managed to get 8xS working because I haven't been able to do it with the 97.02 drivers on my 8800 GTS.

It's possible that the differing drivers are responsible.

 

[nib95]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
I'd like to know how they managed to get 8xS working because I haven't been able to do it with the 97.02 drivers on my 8800 GTS.

It's possible that the differing drivers are responsible.

Do you mean 8XQ AA?
Whats 8xS?

 

[BFG10K]

Do you mean 8XQ AA?

Nope.

Whats 8xS?

Click.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

lol late and indecisive....

yeah they are european site, russia's neck o the woods. so maybe they dont get the same treatment as western europe and USA

 

[theprodigalrebel]

The title says it is an 'Architecture Review'

I do like their reviews because they use a lot of games at all the resolutions that matter, and also play with settings other than normal 4X MSAA.
Even Anandtech's review wasn't that spectacular (benches and games) - but the architecture coverage was spectacular. 4X AA numbers for 2560x1600 are nice, but a more realistic approach would be to test 1600x1200/1920x1200 with the new AA modes. Not many people have 4 MegaPixel displays.

HardOCP and bit-tech's methodology of finding best possible settings also has its own appeal. Rage3D has the best graphs.

 

[xtknight]

So what, give 'em some time/slack. X-Bit Labs has the best reviews by far IMO.

 

[linkgoron]

Xbit always do this.
First comes the architecture review a day or so after the release.

Two-Four days later comes the games review.

They also have the best reviews.

 

[hans007]

yes i agree. their reviews are by far the most technical, and most insightful. they also seem to be less biased. even their way of measuring cpu / video card power is better as they modded a motherboard just to do it.

 

[Goi]

I love xbitlabs reviews too. They're really comprehensive and has stuff that most other sites don't(such as those AF/AA tests). They also seem to analyze the WHY rather than just present the WHAT.